


All Else

by Good0mens



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bottom Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Experimental Style, Fear of Death, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani is an Incurable Romantic, Light Angst, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Memory Related, POV Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Protective Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Rimming, Top Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, i can't believe that's a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:27:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26401147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Good0mens/pseuds/Good0mens
Summary: “Day by dayand night by nightwe were together –all elsehas long been forgottenby me.”-	Walt Whitman
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 30
Kudos: 241





	All Else

**Author's Note:**

> this just kinda happened

In Copley’s office, there is a wall devoted to their work, stretching out the vast distance of their lifetimes, as far back as he could find.

There is a wall, and on that wall there’s photographs, legends, newspaper clippings. There’s Andromache, Sebastien, Quynh even –

and there is _Joe and Nicky._

\--

Joe is tired with the weight of his immortality. Andy has always struggled with the _why_ of things, and in Copley’s discovery she has found it. Joe had felt violated, looking at the excavation of his life. Is this all he is? An instrument for the universe, a gun in the hands of some higher being?

Nicolo, unfazed, would say _we are here to help people where we can and put some good into the world. All the rest is immaterial._

(He is wrong of course. They are here to love one another. All the rest is immaterial)

He is more than a weapon; he is a poet, an artist, a lover. He has loved Nicolo for over 900 years, and it is not enough.

It’s selfish. All things die. But _not this_ , Yusuf thinks as he lays on his front in their bed, Nicolo above him, kissing seismic tremors along his bare shoulders.

Not this.

\--

Yusuf’s faith comes and goes; over his long life, there have been decades where he could not find it within himself to pray; when he sat Ramadan to feel closer to God and gave it up to smoke a cigarette; when he left his prayer mat behind in Malta; when the atrocities of war hollowed him out until there was nothing left in him to devote to a God that would have allowed this to happen.

(Through all of it, there is Nicky. Because what is God next to the man who has spent a millennium at his side and still looks at him like that?)

His hubris sighs honeyed words against his skin while he creates a space between Joe’s parted legs just for him. Nicolo bites into the meat of his ass, causing the muscles to flinch and tighten, before releasing.

He runs a hand up the inside of Joe’s thighs, and Joe shakes in anticipation.

\--

His religion didn’t fade into obscurity like he once feared, into mere myth like the Greeks. No, instead his religion was warped and obfuscated, was misappropriated by people who would kill innocents in its name. His religion became synonymous with _terror._

He doesn’t know if it suffered a worse fate, after all.

They were in Syria, swallowing back a memory of the streets of Jerusalem running with blood-

(oh god, how is it they are still fighting the same war, they will never learn, he’s still bleeding out of a wound that will never close-)

And then Nicky is there, a splendid picture of grace, splitting him open on just his tongue, pressing kisses over his hole.

The man who’d come to meet him outside the wall, taken his outstretched hand and said _enough_.

Nicky makes him believe. 

\--

Yusuf carries his ancestors’ name, _Al-Kaysani_ , like he carries his scimitar.

He was told, as a boy, that he wore his mother’s kind eyes.

(he wonders if he wears her shame too, in his skin; if grief could pass hands and mouths like timeless oral stories; if it hides behind his teeth, echoes in the resonance of his voice.)

He holds a lot of truths to the roof of his mouth, only uttered out when he cannot keep them in, in gasps of _I love you more than any God._ He feels Nicky’s answering moan against his opening before two slick fingers presses inside and he has no words at all.

\--

It bothers him that there are things he has lost only to time; things his hands have touched that he can’t feel; people he’s loved whose faces he can’t quite picture.

How can he heal from a loss he can no longer remember? How can he know who he is if he doesn’t know what he’s done?

(the answer is that he has spent more of his life loving Nicolo than not, and if he is not defined by that love, then he is defined by nothing).

Yusuf tries to lift his hips up, push back against Nicolo’s fingers. How does it still feel like this; desperate, not enough, he’ll never have enough time -

There is still so much that he doesn’t know, even more that he has forgotten, like:

The name of the little girl whose hand he held

What it felt like to kill Nicolo that first time

How far he can walk before his legs give out

But here’s what he does remember:

The taste of metallic gunmetal from a bullet

His father’s name was _Ibrahim_

Quynh’s brilliant laughter

\--

There is also this: he is so full of love he can barely stand it. He has made a house out of Nicolo’s body, and he has filled it with love.

Yusuf is scorching, vibrating with want as Nicolo’s fingers pull out of him. Nicky thumbs him open while his other hand guides his cock inside. He can hear Nicky swear as his head catches, then slips inside. Nicolo glides in until they’re pressed close together. Joe can feel his heartbeat in his throat.

Nicky’s tongue rolls around his name, a low gravelly sound.

(He does not remember what it sounded like when Nicolo said his name for the first time. But he thinks it must sound like this; like he’s revealing some precious thing)

\--

When he shifts on his elbows to look back, Nicolo is staring down at where they are joined together, something satisfied and possessive in his gaze. His hand curls around Yusuf’s hip, his thumb stroking his lower back. Joe shivers, and Nicolo’s eyes snap up to him.

Nicky runs a fingertip down his spine.

_Can you feel me?_

(Everywhere

Everywhere

 _Everywhere_ )

\--

Bright lights.

Nicky is beside him, but out of reach.

The blade slices _in, in, in._ They take blood, muscle tissue, bone marrow.

He can hear Nicky suppressing a grunt as Kozak presses something long and sharp between his ribs, keeping quiet so as to not let Joe hear him in pain.

He is aching with love. 

(They can cut open his body, but they cannot take this.)

Nicky waits until Yusuf relaxes his muscles before pulling out and sliding back in, so, so slow. Joe lets out a shaky breath when Nicky holds himself there, deep inside.

He wants to be consumed by Nicolo, to feel him pressed up against his body until nothing separates them again.

\--

Another fragment:

a gun is shoved in Nicky’s mouth 

Betrayal guts him deeper than any knife

Andy is bleeding on the table, she’s still bleeding, she won’t stop-

Nicky delivers another earth-shattering thrust that pulls pleasure from his stomach into his lungs, grounds him back into his body. Nicky covers Joe’s hand with his own, presses them down into the sheets, blanketing him.

(if Nicky dies before him, Joe will bury him amongst their garden in Malta, and then he will lie beside his beloved until death takes him too)

Joe shoves his hips back on Nicky’s next thrust inside, and he sees stars behind his eyes. It earns him a loud groan from Nicolo, and then a harsh bite on his neck.

_Stay still._

\--

Eventually, after what feels like an eternity, Nicky picks up the speed of his thrusts but maintains the depth, ramming into his prostate more and more often until Joe can’t tell if the relief comes from hitting it or retreating from it.

He aches with the overwhelming feeling of being fucked by Nicky. It’s so much, _too much,_ he can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t do anything but let himself be loved to disrepair by his husband.

He thinks Nicky is saying something, thinks he can hear a chorus of praise in Italian, _Yusuf, my love, you feel so good, so good sweetheart,_ and it sends a thrill up his spine to know Nicky is far enough gone to resort to his mother tongue. He clenches around Nicky just to hear him swear, grip Joe’s hair and shove into him harder.

Joe is reaching that churning spire, and over the sounds of his own desperate moans, he can hear a distant hymn of rebellion;

Nicky taking his hand at Stonewall,

Nicolo taking his hand outside Jerusalem,

Nicolo, Nicolo, Nicolo-

Joe falls apart. His mouth opens on a cry, barely has time to gasp out _yes, god, there, I’m coming_ , before he screws his eyes shut and shatters into pieces.


End file.
